Someone gave me a Best Buy gift card

[jpc]

It's for $100. As they say:

"I've seen better buys, actually."

My monitor died, so I'm in the market for some new kit. Best Buy seems to carry monitors up to 1920x1080. My old monitor was 1920x1200 and I liked the high vertical resolution.

Hey, some CRTs will do 1600x1200. That'll show two tall panes of text. That's what I need. Dear Best Buy, why shouldn't I find a CRT on craigslist and be done?

I opened the dead monitor to see if a connector needed a reseat. Whoa! Flimsy construction! It would be nice to replace it with enterprise grade kit that'll last a decade. Uh does Best Buy carry that?

[IvanIvanovich]

Extremely unlikely. You can put that towards an LG IPS lcd though which will be the best display they have to offer.

[jpc]

Heh I meant it as a rhetorical question, you know what that means?

(pause)

It means you're not supposed to answer it!

(ba-dum chhhhh)

Seriously, yes I was reading about IPS panels. I work with text, so is IPS overkill?

I wish my old monitor hadn't broken. It was fine when it worked -- a Samsung 2433BW. Oh! Names just got NAMED on the flimsy construction!

[cirE]

Hey, some CRTs will do 1600x1200. That'll show two tall panes of text. That's what I need. Dear Best Buy, why shouldn't I find a CRT on craigslist and be done?

be....cause staring at text on a CRT will murder your eyes? I can't go back to CRT.

[jpc]

That's a good point. I'm (forced) back to CRT for now. No fun. It helps to have a nice DAC -- I have an old matrox card that I always thought had the most wonderful signal quality -- but still, you're right.

[Hydroid]

Why not get a monitor that you can just put in portrait instead of landscape then you can have nice vertical height for text.

[woody]

Seriously, yes I was reading about IPS panels. I work with text, so is IPS overkill?

Not at all, it's investment in the eye department. Forget TNs, get at least PVA/MVA, or best yet IPS, since they're not that expensive anymore.

Seirously, screw CRT and get IPS. And go DVI-D (or HDMI), then video DACs don't matter.
NEC if you want classy stuff, perhaps EIZO too. Dell if you want to save cash.

It's ten years since I got rid of CRTs and so glad of it.

[EverythingIBM]

be....cause staring at text on a CRT will murder your eyes? I can't go back to CRT.

It HUGELY depends on the person. The only thing that can screw with people would be the refresh rate (but otherwise it beats an LCD backlight any day; but the LED backlights are very nice, I love them). 60Hz looks the most sharp. Higher refresh rates start to look too "soft" and slightly smoothed over.

That's a good point. I'm (forced) back to CRT for now. No fun. It helps to have a nice DAC -- I have an old matrox card that I always thought had the most wonderful signal quality -- but still, you're right.

Matrox cards were typically manufactured in Canada and do have high quality, although I have some oddball one made in china that has inserts for SO-DIMMs.

[jpc]

So I sold the gift card and bought an HP ZR24W. That's a 1920x1200 IPS panel with an sRGB color space (normal gamut, no colorimeter required to calibrate.)

Someone on my local CL was giving away a Sony Trinitron 24" 1920x1200 CRT weighing 92 lbs. Sadly it was gone when I called. Now that woulda looked old skool with a Wang 724 in front of it.

In other news, my old monitor is under warranty?? lolwut?? Haha it's 33 months into a 36 month warranty. So it's on its way back to Samsung. What are the chances they send back a good monitor of the same model?

[Arc'xer]

So I sold the gift card and bought an HP ZR24W. That's a 1920x1200 IPS panel with an sRGB color space (normal gamut, no colorimeter required to calibrate.)

Someone on my local CL was giving away a Sony Trinitron 24" 1920x1200 CRT weighing 92 lbs. Sadly it was gone when I called. Now that woulda looked old skool with a Wang 724 in front of it.

In other news, my old monitor is under warranty?? lolwut?? Haha it's 33 months into a 36 month warranty. So it's on its way back to Samsung. What are the chances they send back a good monitor of the same model?

Someone was GIVING AWAY?!?! an GDM-FW900? Crazy, just crazy(In good condition it can be anywhere between 250-800 or more). Either it must be in bad condition(especially considering their age) or they probably thought it was damaged or it had a reparable green cast which could be repaired with image restore. Albeit if you know what your doing despite the lower refresh rate you could push the 900 to 2560x1600, above it's recommended maximum of 2304x1440@85hz, though I've seen some mention 90hz with BNC and a few tweaks(which is nice for judder free playback of 30FPS internet video using 90Hz as a equal divisor).

As for the warranty, quite possible you might get a lower grade panel I'm sure after all that time they sold all the A and B panels, they are probably left with C and D stock unless they continued to manufacture or they withhold some volume of the A and B grade; panels for these kinds of things. Though speaking of good panel of the same quality, I do remember a few years ago Samsung was sued due to the way they would sell their monitors and the panel grades or something to that nature and after that lawsuit they began to offer better panel grades even in their lower end models. So you never know you might get lucky and get a good quality grade. Though every once in a while you get people making threads on "panel lotteries" though at this stage with a monitor that old it might not be possible to find a high grade.

[dorkvader]

be....cause staring at text on a CRT will murder your eyes? I can't go back to CRT.

LG FW900@85Hz or
viewsonic 1024*768@117Hz

anything under 72Hz is pretty much unviewable to me, though.

arc"xer is right, though it "could" have been an HP 2532a (same as the sony, though beige)

There is a company nearby with about a dozen of these. I want them all. I took apart a broken one once (from the e-waste pile at my univ.), and they're amazing. Easily the best build quality I've yet seen in any display device. Widescreet CRT, bytheway.

I used to have 7 studio (with BNC) trinitrons though now I use an old dell 17" that can somehow go past 1600*1200. It has the best brightness.

[woody]

So I sold the gift card and bought an HP ZR24W. That's a 1920x1200 IPS panel with an sRGB color space (normal gamut, no colorimeter required to calibrate.)

Hope you like it. In an unrelated event I just got U2711 (e-IPS) because it's dirt cheap.

[jpc]

Someone was GIVING AWAY?!?! an GDM-FW900?

Not for very long they weren't. The ad said it was in good functional and cosmetic condition.

That's what I get for not checking the CL free section every 15 minutes.

[Canada]

It HUGELY depends on the person. The only thing that can screw with people would be the refresh rate (but otherwise it beats an LCD backlight any day; but the LED backlights are very nice, I love them). 60Hz looks the most sharp. Higher refresh rates start to look too "soft" and slightly smoothed over.

I absolutely cannot stand 60hz CRT monitors for more than 15 minutes.  The flickering is bothersome.

75hz and faster are okay, though.